6. Dying for a Job: The Latest Craigslist Killings

By Howard Chua-EoanWednesday, Dec. 07, 2011

Tony Dejak / AP

The October job post sounded promising, especially for anyone desperate for work. "Simply watch over 688 acre patch of hilly farmland," read the want ad for a caretaker for southern Ohio property in the Akron-Canton section of Craigslist. At least four men responded. Three ended up dead, buried in shallow graves where they thought they were going to be interviewed, a place that turned out not to be a farm at all but a wooded area that had nothing to do with agriculture. One other interviewee managed to escape after being shot in the arm. Even more bizarre were the duo implicated by the authorities in late November. Brogan Rafferty, 16, has been charged as a juvenile with aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder in two of the incidents involved in the case. His mother claims her son told her he had nothing to do with the murders. Rafferty's father Michael told ABC News that his son "was misled by someone he extremely trusted. And somebody that was supposed to be a mentor for him. And I think probably, at the very end, he had an idea and was threatened." He also told the network that his son had been misled into digging the graves, believing they were drainage ditches. The young man's alleged associate is a 52-year-old purported preacher named Richard Beasley who has not yet been charged in any of the murders but has been indicted on unrelated charges of promoting and compelling prostitution, including the services of a 17-year-old boy. Beasley had previously been in trouble with the law on drug charges.